If, instead, the potential “sacrificed” person killed you first, in self-defense – thus stopping you in your courageous act and resulting in the death of the one-million – would he be guilty of: (1) murdering you, (2) murdering you and the one million, (3) nothing. Would it matter whether the “sacrificed” knew that his survival would’ve meant the death of one million?
Z.
But this hypothetical is just absolutely ridiculous. What type of scenario could possibly take place where one innocent has to be KILLED to save one million? It doesn’t make sense. Maybe I have a terrible imaginiation so perhaps the OP can help me out, but I can’t envision anything where if there is a possibility of 1 million people being killed by something- that the death of one man could prevent it. Its never ever ok to kill anyone innocent, period. That type of thinking always leads to a more dangerous path.
When thinking in terms of collective action, or absolutism, yes it leads to a more dangerous path. When thinking subjectively for one’s own self it leads, in this case, to doing something I find quite reasonable, even though the context in which the act occurs is tragic. So it seems to me the danger is in collectivism and the like, and that utilitarianism would only be a proximate cause.
So in the current Statist context, if we were having a public policy debate, I would argue against any utilitarian “greatest happiness” legislation or judgment. Again, utilitarianism is only the proximate cause; the State is the root cause.
I’ve heard and read alot of such like supposed problems.Often they seem to be an attempt to throw off objective ethics or make you throw out your principles.They’re pretty devious.Usually they involve a false dilemma in that they offer choice A or choice B with no alternatives.
who is this one person? are they innocent or gulity of crime?
who are the one million?
why must I make this choice?
What if I choose to kill myself rather than kill anyone?
what if I choose to kill those who I assume are forcing me to choose?
another tact would be to say well if I’m being forced doesn’t that mean that since the act would not be voluntary it can be neither moral nor immoral and as such is amoral.I am not guilty .
My first inclination to this question is “no” .kill no one and if others die it’s not directly your fault since you killed no one.
I would probably either do that or kill myself or those forcing me rather than follow through the orders.You might say this sounds idealistic or stupid.Well,I just don’t have the heart to do anything otherwise.
Then you have to watch Fail-Safe (1964).
OK, Helen H. is tree days old. We know that the kid holds an incredibly powerful mutated flu virus (innocuous to her) which shall make the Spanish flu seem a joke in comparison. It can become active any moment. It is estimated (no 100% security here) that up to 5 goddamn billion people will die. Would you wack the kid? Isolate her?
What if it is discovered that such a mutation is present in Helen’s mitochondrial DNA, i.e. every matrilineal relative holds it too, in a dormant form. Only some of them can be indentified. Do you wack them? Even if you do there still is a chance than the epidemics will begin anyways, as there are other matrilineal relatives which you can’t possibly identity. Does the probability of the dormant virus awaking influence the decision? What if it is almost certain (suppose that a major solar flare is excepted to activate it)? What if the chances of activation are one in a billion?
More extremely, what if it was discovered that every redhead holds that mutation? Every blonde? Every European? Half of humans? What if 99% of people alive hold viruses that kill the rest of us? Did the Mayans had the right to wack the Spanish if they had known that they would hold viruses that would kill of 90% of the natives? (the mayas iddn’t know that: are they still right when killing Spaniards?) How do we interfere with evolution here? Is it wise?
But most importantly: does anyone here believe that a universal answer can be given? Anything but the individual arbitrators answer to a single case?
Yes, as long as the threat was direct and imminent, like a man running toward the nuke firing button. You are free to kill the man in any other situation, but you are responsible for murder if he was innocent. Killing a guy just because he may look threatening is wrong.
See attached.
Block gave the example of Person A, who, being struck by a lightning bolt, can choose either to endure the pain or to pass it on to Person B. In that case, we have a conflict between A and B that can only be resolved by deciding whether A or B “should” take the pain. I’m in full agreement with you and Block here. Block quite reasonably applies the idea of negative homesteading - for any justification that A could use for passing the pain to B, B could use the same justification to pass it back to A, and the conflict would not be resolved.
But we should distinguish the case of a lightning bolt (which is not an agent capable of action) from the case of a third person (Person C) who is initiating coercion:
In both cases I think we would agree that B (here, the one person) has the right to defend him-/herself - to say otherwise is to say that someone (A in the first case, C in the second) should be able to outright murder B without resistance. The question is: does B’s right of self-defense imply that A is obligated to refrain from hurting B? In the first case, yes: because otherwise our ethical theory would fail to resolve the conflict. But in the second case, our ethical theory already resolves the conflict by saying that Person C should not have set up the scenario in the first place. If we stipulate from the outset that ethical rules are being violated by C, then there is nothing inherently contradictory about saying that, between A and B, they are both in the right and there is no way to resolve their conflict by ethics; hence the need to apply the rule of negative homesteading does not arise.
But I’m at a loss to provide full answers to the questions in my previous post. Can you?
I think this is the right question to ask.
Sorry for the late reply; these issues are complicated and take a lot of thinking. And though I don’t claim to have presented rock-solid unassailable arguments here, I can still try, rather than simply say that the questions are unanswerable.
As Block says, apply the rule of homesteading (i.e., first come first served). If I’m driving on a busy highway, and suddenly I’m struck blind, I no longer have the right to keep driving and crash - the other drivers “homesteaded” their rights to life from before my blindness. So with your examples, it’s ethical to quarantine the person who is a newly-become threat to others. Note, however, that the opposite is true if it’s the other way around: if I suddenly change such that carbon dioxide is deadly to me, I don’t have the right to stop everyone else from breathing - I have the first claim to the misery that nature has sent me.
Practically speaking, for one, it’s exceedingly unlikely that 99% of the population would suddenly become dangerous - it’s much more likely that 1% would become vulnerable. Also, if human immune systems are so ill-prepared that a naturally-evolved virus has the potential to kill 5 billion people, then I’d say you’re pretty much screwed no matter what you do.
This scenario is very non-specific, so I’ll have to add a lot of qualifiers.
First of all, we would have to know the extent to which the Spaniards were causally responsible for the epidemics. For example, suppose that after a 3-week drought in a fire-prone area, there is a forest fire that causes millions of dollars’ worth of damage. Suppose then it’s discovered that the fire was started by someone who carelessly threw a cigarette off the side of the road. Is this person liable for all the damage? I would say, no, because forest fires are a part of nature, and at most the cigarette-thrower could be held liable for the fact that the fire occurred slightly earlier than it otherwise would have. However, assuming that the pathogenic ecosystem of the Americas was long-term stable, then yes, the natives have a good enough reason to compel the Spaniards to leave (or quarantine themselves, etc.). On the other hand, if neither the natives nor the Spaniards at all knew that the Spaniards were spreading viruses (which would be a little hard not to notice, granted), and the Spaniards have not been negligent in gathering this information (again a big if), then I think there is no basis for a liability claim by the natives against the Spaniards, even if the viruses are discovered in retrospect. In any case, killing the Spaniards is excessive, since whatever this could accomplish could also be accomplished by making them leave (assuming that the virus hasn’t spread yet). I have assumed throughout that the Spaniards were not trespassing on the natives’ property, which makes it easy to decide who’s right.
What would qualify as a “universal” answer? Do you think that arguing about these cases is completely superfluous? After all, even an arbitrator needs some basis on which to make a decision. If parties have brought a conflict to an arbitrator, then they already believe that there is some answer to their dispute, or else they would have just agreed to disagree. And since both parties are agreed on this point, the arbitrator may assume as much when making a decision.
It’s a subjective situation. There are many ways to view it. If you are against killing people, you could look at it from the perspective that you are not the one committing the deed of killing one million people, so you are not at fault. You would not kill the one person. However, if you are against killing people, but believe that the one million would be on your hands, you might weigh it out numerically and decide that you are more righteous by killing the one. You could have complete contempt for people, or you could just not care, and you could let the million die. Or you could have complete contempt for people, but also be murderous, and you could kill the one. That’s without even judging the characteristics of the one or the million in question. Once that enters the arena, there are even more moral quandaries to deal with.
Zavoi,
I found your answers interesting, still what preoccupies me is the effect that this principle would have on evolution. For if the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica happened nowadays, and both Spaniard and Mayans whet evolved enough to understand that the Mayan immune system is ill-prepared to deal with the ordinary European flu, according to Block the Mayans would have the right to ask the Spaniards to not even set foot on the continent (although they cannot possibly homestead it all given their already meager numbers). Is such a decision wise in the long-term? I’m afraid it would precipitate a typical Misesian scenario: an overpopulated Europe and the massively under populated rest of the world, and still the Europeans cannot emigrate as it is ‘unfair’. It is easy to see that a massive war will begin, and the non-Europeans will be killed anyways.
So, applying the Block principle in real life it doesn’t give us a satisfactory answer all times. And that’s what I meant with “there ate no universal answers”. Arbiters will of course decide by whatever standard they hold to be ethical, and it shall only be the market that will set which of these standards will do for the issue at hand. We cannot pretend to already know what principle will apply to each and every case, not even the NAP; all we can say is what we would chose in the case at hand.
PS: even I do not know how I would deal with the scenario above. But I agree with you, that would depend much on the specific data of the case at hand.
This makes no sense whatsoever. How is something punishable if not forbidden?
It makes complete sense. If you can’t comprehend it, then I can’t help you. Sorry.
If you can convince me that you actually read the article, then I might have bothered. But since you’ve been referred to previously as a troll, and I generally agree with the analysis - I don’t think I will.
The exact circumstances involved need to be clarified for an appropriate answer to be given. In morals and ethics there is what’s known as “The Rule of Absolutes” so, one must know the details.
For example, the question does not make the distinction between killing and murder. It also does not say whether the the one person to be killed agrees to be sacrificed, etc., etc.
As a Christian I would need to know the specifics involved. Some Eskimo tribes sacrificed a diseased person within their tribe; otherwise the entire tribe would have perished. As a Christian I would not disagree with the morality involved in this particular case and I don’t know many others who would.
Can you present a more specific example?